Chapter XXXIX: A Visit of Tender Memories 320 (7)

I hastily changed my dress and was ready when my carriage was brought to the door. “Marse Green” (I will not give the full name; everybody in his old district knows who I mean), was a lawyer, a politician, a man of family, while not a family man, and his little cottage home in town was presided over, the best they knew how, by his three daughters, the eldest of whom was scarcely out of her teens. The disturbed state of the country had compelled me to stay quietly as I could at my plantation home, and in the absorbing and frequent rumor of Yankees coming, no real town news and gossip sifted in. Thus I had not heard that Miss Fanny’s fiancé, a wounded soldier, was at Marse Green’s.

I was driven at a rapid pace up the road and through the restless, crowded street throngs to the home of these motherless girls, whose New England governess had returned North. I had long been their mother’s dearest friend, and a refuge for her daughters in all their troubles and perplexities. We were completely cut off from any reliable information of the doings of the world, almost at our doors. Everybody knew New Orleans had fallen and Butler was treading the prostrate people with hoofs of iron, and also it was only a matter of time when his rule would reach our town only 130 miles off. As a matter of course, under such circumstances, we were alive to any startling rumor.

Marse Green, who did things by fits and starts, and did them very thoroughly, too, when he started, had announced to his daughters on the morning of my visit that they must be ready by early dawn the following day to move themselves and everything else they might need to his plantation on the Amite. Then the man of family shook the dust of further assistance from his feet and proceeded to his office for the day’s enlightenments. Of course, all business of a legal nature was suspended. The few able-bodied men lingering outside the rank of fighters, who were facetiously called “Druthers,” because they’d druther not fight, or in other words, would druther stay at home, had dropped in Marse Green’s office to while pleasantly away their idle time. The old gentleman hobbled on his crutches to his favorite chair and was telling his lounging visitors that gunboats being “jist ’round de p’int,” he was sending his family out of harm’s way, when some one casually remarked, “What you going to do with the Captain? He can’t stay here, a paroled soldier, and he can’t go with those young girls that way.” “By gracious!” Marse Green had not thought of that. The Captain must marry Fanny right away, or run the risk of being captured, for he had no place to go. In pursuance of that sudden plan, an emissary was dispatched to summon me, and to get the Methodist preacher. Messengers were also sent with flying feet among the few near neighbors, asking their presence that afternoon, while Marse Green himself rushed back home to announce the decision to his family.

I arrived in a scene of confusion beyond words to express. Already some kindly neighbors were there helping the distracted girls to pack. Trunks, boxes, bags, barrels, baskets, were in every room with piles and piles of household and personal articles to be stowed. Everybody was busy and everybody stumbling and tearing about in every other body’s way. Marse Green had already descended upon them with his ultimatum, and worse became the confusion with this new and unexpected element injected into it. Dear Fanny must be married in white, so every one declared. Then ensued a ransacking of trunks and drawers for a pretty white lawn she had—somewhere! At length it was brought to light in a very crumpled condition, not having been worn since the winter (the last Buchanan winter) Fanny spent in Washington with her father. There was no time or opportunity or place, apparently, to press the wrinkles out and make the really handsome gown presentable. Then there arose a clamor and frantic search for white stockings. Nobody had the temerity to mention white kid gloves. They were of the past, as completely as a thousand other necessities we had learned to do without. The black dress was laid aside. Fanny looked very lovely in her white gown, the most calm and composed of any of us.

The dazed, bewildered and half-sick Captain meandered around in his dingy Confederate gray, the only suit he had. His skull had been fractured in battle (I think at Shiloh), the hair had been shaved off one side of his head and a silver plate covered and protected the wound. Time was passing swifter than the motions of the little party, fast as they were. All the packing and loading of wagons had to be completed for the early morning start. The rest of us could stay in our homes and run our chances—which we did, woe is me!—but Marse Green’s girls must be off, in accordance with his dictum, and, of course, a Confederate officer had to get out of the enemy’s reach.

Meanwhile the other invited neighbors were arriving, and also an Episcopal minister. Mr. Crenshaw, the Methodist preacher, could not be found. He had spent hours haranguing the few peace-loving Jews, superannuated cripples and handful of “Druthers” remaining in town, telling those incapables or insufficients they were not patriotic to stand aside and let the enemy’s gunboats land at our wharf, but it appears when the latter really were “just behind de p’int,” the voluble gentleman’s discretion got the better of his valor, and he had ingloriously fled.

One kindly neighbor, a late arrival, whispered to another, who had been there all day helping, “Any refreshments?” Not a soul had thought of refreshments; we isolated housekeepers had not even heard the name for so long that it had not occurred to us to talk of furnishing what we could not procure. The late comer rushed home and quickly returned with the half of a cornmeal pound-cake and a pitcher of brown sugar lemonade. Then the minister required some one to give the bride away. That was not in Marse Green’s Methodist service, and besides Marse Green was getting mortally tired and fractious, so, without my knowing it, Mr. McHatton volunteered to perform that function. We guests who had been behind the scenes, and were getting to be mortally tired and fractious, too, assembled in the hastily-cleared parlor to witness the ceremony.

I was struck with amazement to see my husband, who had been the busiest man there all day, march into the room with dear, pretty Fanny on his arm! I never did know where the necessary ring came from, but somebody produced a plain gold ring, which, no doubt, was afterwards returned with appropriate thanks. The Captain was a strikingly handsome man, even with a bandaged head and those ill-fitting clothes, not even store-made, and we all agreed Fanny looked very placid and happy. Their healths were drunk in tepid lemonade (did you ever drink brown sugar lemonade? If your grandmother is a Southern woman I’ll be bound she has). There was a hurried “God bless you!” and a kiss, and I had to rush home to two wounded brothers needing my care.

Some near neighbors stayed to assist in the further preparations for an early flight. I afterwards heard the entire family, groom and all, were at work all night, and at early dawn Marse Green was able to start the loaded wagons to the piny, sandy country. The bride and groom and two young sisters piled into the ramshackle old family carriage, and were driven off, a ten hours’ trip to Amite. I trust they made it before night, but it was many years thereafter before I knew anything further of them.

I asked my husband, afterwards, when we talked the wedding over, who paid the minister? We had not seen yet a Confederate soldier with as much money as a wedding fee in his pocket. “I don’t think the Captain had a dollar,” he replied, “so I whispered him to be easy; we would attend to the minister.” No hat was passed around, but someone produced a fifty-dollar Confederate bill—unless it was parted with very promptly it was not worth fifty cents to the preacher.

The gunboats the frantic negroes had so long heralded, got “round de p’int” at last, and a battle ensued in the very streets of our town. Marse Green’s house happened to be in the thick of it, and consequently was so riddled that it was put permanently out of commission. The family never returned to it, even to view the ruins.

At the time of the exposition I accidentally met the Captain and his wife on a street car in New Orleans. At Napoleon avenue the car stopped and the passengers were leaving. I asked in a general way, knowing no one, “Do we change cars here?” A voice, whose owner was out of sight, promptly replied, “Yes, madam, you wait for me.” I was thus the last passenger to descend, and to my unspeakable amazement I was received by the Captain and Fanny! She said, though she did not see me, she had recognized my voice, and she reminded me that it was almost twenty-one years since we parted. It was sweet to know that the marriage in haste had not the proverbial sequel of repentance at leisure. They were a happy couple.

The whole wedding affair was a painful and pitiful episode, and for years I had thought of it with a tinge of sadness; but a few years ago, on a later visit to New Orleans, I had the happiness to meet a dear old friend who was one of the busiest helpers on the occasion, and we merrily laughed over the recalled incidents that at the time were so pathetic. The handsome Captain may be living; I have since lost track of him, but every other soul that was at that wedding has gone where there’s no marrying or giving in marriage—I, only, am left to chronicle this wedding in war-time.

XXXIV

SUBSTITUTES

Mrs. Walker sent me a pan of flour! It was the first time in months and almost the last time in years that I saw flour. These, you must know, were war times, and flour was not the only necessary we lacked. Dear Dr. Stone had a bluff, hearty way of arriving at things. When the Federals were in New Orleans he was often called for a surgical consultation, or to administer to an officer, with headache or backache, for they were mortally afraid of yellow fever, and it was just the season for it; and their regimental surgeons were not familiar with the scourge. Dr. Stone frequently “made a bargain” before he would act, and so I do not doubt in that way he obtained permission to ship a barrel of flour—for which all of us were famishing—to Mrs. Stone’s sister on the coast. Mrs. Walker most generously shared it with her neighbors.

Indians had lived on cornmeal and prospered therewith. Negroes had lived on cornmeal and prospered also. We were living on cornmeal and not prospering, for we had been brought up on (metaphorically speaking) nectar and ambrosia. Our cakes even, everybody had to have cakes! were made of cornmeal and molasses.... But I want to tell more about our Dr. Stone. When one Northern officer sent for him to consult about amputating a leg the doctor told him, in his blunt, positive way, he would not even examine the wounded member until he had in his pocket a permit for Mrs. Stone and the ladies associated with her to visit the Parish Prison and minister to the Confederates confined there. It was the only time any of us ever heard of a body asking the privilege of entering that dirty old calaboose down by Congo Square.

Many such stories were wafted to us about Dr. Stone. Some may not have been authentic, but we loved to hear and to repeat them. However, after the war, I did hear him tell of a Union officer offering him the present of a fine horse in recognition of some professional obligation. “I needed that horse,” he said, “for I had none, and so I was going my rounds a-foot, but it was branded U. S. and I returned it.” Years after I met that Federal officer in St. Paul, and, speaking of the doctor, whom he admired greatly, he told of the horse he had tendered him, which was promptly returned, accompanied with a most amusing note, ending with “So US don’t want that horse.”

Every blessed one of us was a coffee drinker, and even before the secession of Louisiana we were weighing and measuring what coffee we had on hand, not knowing where we could replenish our diminishing stock. Gov. Manning, of South Carolina, and his wife were our guests at this crisis, and Mrs. Manning showed me how to prepare a substitute for coffee. Gracious me! that was the first, but we had substitutes for almost every article, both to eat and to wear, before we were whipped like naughty children and dragged back into the Union, and made to take our nauseous medicine, labeled “Reconstruction.” And now we are all cured! and will never be naughty again.

That first substitute, which was followed by a score of others, was sweet potatoes, cut, dried, toasted, ground and boiled. The concoction did not taste so very bad, but it had no aroma, and, of course, no exhilarating quality; it was simply a sweety, hot drink. We had lots of Confederate money, but it quickly lost any purchasing power it ever had. There was nothing for sale, and we could not have bought anything even if shops had been stocked with goods and supplies. A pin! Why to this day I always stoop to pick up a pin, I learned so to value that insignificant necessary in the days we could not buy a pin. A hairpin! Many women in country towns used thorns to secure their “waterfalls.” We wore waterfalls; chignons they were called later. I saw many of them made of silk strings, plaited or twisted. Women had to be in the fashion, as Dr. Talmage once said, “though the heavens fell.” If we had had anything to sew we would have missed the usual needle supply.

I was visiting one day when one large and one small needle were all there were in the house; if they had been made entirely of gold, instead of “gold-eyed” only, they could not have been more cherished. I can hear the wailing voice now, inquiring, “Where is the needle?”

You may smile now at the idea of a substitute for a toothbrush, but, my dear, that oft-quoted mother of invention taught us an althea switch made a fairly good toothbrush; of course, it was both scratchy and stiff, but we never found a better substitute for the necessary article. As for tea, we Southerners have never been addicted to the tea habit; however, we soon became disgusted with the various coffee substitutes. We tried to vary our beverages with draughts of catnip tea, that the darkies always give their babies for colic; and orange leaf tea, that old ladies administered to induce perspiration in cases of chills; and sassafras tea we had drunk years gone by in the spring season to thin the blood. We did not fancy posing as babies or ague cases—the taste of each variety was highly suggestive. I wonder if any lady of to-day ever saw a saucer of home-made soft soap on her washstand? After using it one had to grease (no use saying oil, for it was generally mutton tallow) the hands to prevent the skin cracking. I never used that soap, but traveling in out-of-the-way roads I saw it on many a stand. Clothes, too, wore out, as is their nature, and the kind we were used to wearing were not of the lasting variety like osnaburgs and linseys.

Quite early in the war Cuthbert Slocomb and De Choiseul stopped over a night with us on their way to the front. With them was another young man whose name escapes me now, who was suffering from chills, so he remained a few days as our guest. We dosed him with orange-leaf tea, which was about the best we could do, having no quinine on hand. In his kit he had a lot of chamois skins, which he laid out before me with the modest request I make a pair of pantaloons out of them. We talked the project over and decided overalls were the only thing in that line that could be made of chamois skins, that, of course, had to be pieced lengthways, crossways and sideways. The result was satisfactory, and the young man proudly carried off his overalls. I hoped, but did not expect, that he would escape a rain or two on his expedition clad in chamois skins! However, I was amply repaid for my ingenuity and skill, for I had scraps enough of the skins left me to supply tobacco pouches and gloves to lots of soldier friends thereafter.

At one time, in dire need, I paid one dollar a yard for thin coarse muslin, white with black dots, which looked distressingly bad after a wetting or two, but my crowning extravagance was paying thirty dollars a yard for common blue denim; that was in Houston. Thus went the last of my Confederate money. After that for a while we did without things.

Mr. James Phelps of New Orleans—scores of us must remember genial Jim Phelps—made a call on me in Texas, introducing himself with the whimsical remark that I must look at him from shoulder up and not down, for he had on a brand new paper collar, and had borrowed the use of a razor, and was now out making ceremonious calls! Oh, dear me! we lived through all of these privations, and the few remaining survivors are not afflicted with nervous prostration, or any of the fashionable ills of the day. Their nerves were strengthened, their spirits brightened. They bravely bore the fires of trouble and privation that make them placidly content with the comforts and solaces of their declining years.

XXXV

AN UNRECORDED BIT OF NEW ORLEANS HISTORY

Since there are still living descendants of the persons concerned in this incident, I have omitted names. The story is entirely true and well known to many old residents of New Orleans.

More than sixty-five years ago, a man I shall not name, was tried and convicted of fraud against the State Land office. He was in the prime of life, educated, a West Point graduate, of good parentage, splendid physique, gracious though a trifle pompous and self-asserting in manner and of presumed wealth. Of course, his case, when it came to trial, was bravely contested inch by inch. Rich relatives, influential friends, and the best legal talent were enlisted, but it was too plain a case of fraud. So, after tedious trial, conviction and sentence to the Penitentiary at Baton Rouge resulted. There were the usual delays, a stay of sentence, a wrangle as to final commitment, a question of length of sentence. His sureties were caught in the net, and tremendous efforts they made to dodge liability for the amount of the bond. Two of the sureties did escape, but the third made good. In steamboat parlance, he “went to the clerk’s office and settled.”

Meanwhile the convicted man—he was called “Colonel,” not by courtesy only, for, unlike most Southern Colonels of that date, he had had military training and might have been even more if he had waited till Generals were in dire demand in Dixie—the Colonel was behind bars in the Parish Prison. The horrid old calaboose down by Congo Square, where more than one Confederate languished two decades later, when the prison was twenty years older and forty years dirtier. The Colonel’s devoted wife, who had worn out the energies of a dozen wives, and was still alert and active in behalf of her unfortunate mate, never relaxed her vigilance. When the coils of the law wrapped tighter and tighter around the doomed man, she rose to every emergency. No personal appeals, nothing her fertile mind had suggested, had availed to stay the process of the law. Now that worse had come to the worst, and the Colonel was under lock and key, awaiting the final decision as to length of sentence, Madam and the Colonel’s oldest daughter (her step-daughter, by the way) went daily to the calaboose to visit the prisoner. Their visits were made always in the afternoon. The two cloaked and heavily veiled ladies remained till the closing of the gates.

It was in the fall of the year, and election times, when politics were rife. Madam was not only bright and intelligent, but endowed with remarkable tact, and brim full of schemes and resources. At every visit she stopped at the gate and had converse with the warden or turnkey, or whoever was on duty, and related to him the latest news and political gossip and bantered him on his political bias, no matter what that bias was. This course she pursued daily and vigorously. The daughter, still in her teens, was a mere figurehead, always heavily veiled and enveloped in a voluminous long coat. With the slightest nod of recognition to “the powers that be,” she proceeded rapidly to her father’s cell, leaving her mother, so bursting with talk and information that she could neither enter nor depart without first unburdening herself of the latest political news.

One evening, when matters at court were nearing the crisis, the two ladies rushed into prison, almost breathless, they had hurried so! They had had all sorts of detentions. They realized they were late, and would only have a minute, but they could not let the day pass without the customary visit to the Colonel, etc., etc. While madam was endeavoring to explain to the warden the cause of the delay, and tell also some anecdote anent the election which was too good to keep, the quiet young girl proceeded at once to the cell of her father. The turnkey came in sight, significantly rattling his keys, which roused madam to the consciousness that she had not been in to kiss the Colonel good-night, after all. She had been so interested in Mr. Warden, he was so entertaining, and had such queer views and opinions of the candidates, etc., etc. So, to the Colonel she rushed, returning immediately to the gate, where her friend was impatiently waiting to lock up, signal to do so having been given. The dim lamps about Congo Square had been lighted and a darkening November day was fast closing around them. “Lavinia, come, the jailor is waiting to lock up.” “Yes, ma,” was the reply from the cell. A moment later: “Lavinia, it is getting too dark for us to be out; come at once.” “Yes, ma, I’m coming right now.” “That girl can’t bear to leave her father.” As the madam said this, out rushed Lavinia. Her mother caught her arm and both parties darted through the closing gate, with a wave from madam’s hand and a “Good-bye, we will be early to-morrow and never keep you waiting again.”

The lock-up took his rounds at the usual time to close the cells for the night. The Colonel seemed to be quietly sleeping in his narrow cot, trousers and stockings carelessly thrown upon the chair. The door was securely fastened by the officer.

Next morning, when it was opened, a gruff voice called to the sleeper, who seemed to be stupidly half awake. Miss Lavinia rose from the bed, showing her face to the attendant for the first time in all these weeks. The Colonel, disguised in his daughter’s cloak and veil, had flown!

There were no telegraphs, or wireless, nothing, in fact, but nimble legs and more nimble horses to facilitate the frantic search. The bird had flown afar.

Long before the cage door was opened the prisoner was beyond the reach of the long arm of the law. Madam had for weeks been skillfully planning escape, how skillfully, the result proved. She had engaged the services of the captain of a fruit schooner to take a lady passenger on his next trip to Havana. To insure results, she had privately conveyed provisions and necessary articles for the passenger’s comfort to the vessel, bribed the captain to secrecy, and it was planned he would give her timely notice when the tides and winds were favorable to raise sail, and put rapidly and silently to sea from Lake Pontchartrain.

He fulfilled his promises so to do.

When the two (supposed) women rushed into the hack awaiting them round the corner from the jail, the driver whipped up his horses and trotted rather faster than usual down the old shell road he had conveyed these ladies more times than he could remember, right from that old corner to the schooner landing.

Years after these events had ceased to be talked of, or even remembered, and the ladies who bore the colonel’s name had vanished from Louisiana, from the deck of an incoming steamer in the harbor of Havana my husband was frantically hailed by a stout old gentleman standing in a lighter. The gray-haired man, who did not dare venture into an American vessel, recognized my husband, whom he had slightly known in the days of his prosperity. He was now an exile, a runner for a Cuban hotel. How eagerly and gladly he took possession of us and our belongings; how he piloted us through the narrow streets; how he domiciled us in the best rooms, and how assiduous he was in attention to our comfort, I cannot tell.

A few years thereafter the poor old man, who had one daughter with him to solace his declining years, passed sadly away, and I was summoned from my plantation home to the stricken girl. She tearfully told me the story of his flight, which had never been revealed before, and, together, we turned the leaves of the worn and faded diary he had kept during that exciting voyage to the Spanish Dominion, where there was no extradition treaty to compel his deliverance to his country. In the early days, when there were no telegraphs, no cables, he managed to support his wife and daughters in New York by acting as commercial correspondent for several newspapers, both in New York and New Orleans, and Charleston also, I think; but that business died out, and he gradually became too infirm for any active or sustained occupation.

His death was a blessed release.

XXXVI

CUBAN DAYS IN WAR TIMES

Not a Confederate who was stranded in Havana in the ’60’s but can recall with grateful feelings the only hotel there kept by an American woman and kept on American lines. Every Confederate drifted under that roof-tree. If he possessed the wherewithal he paid a round sum for the privilege. If he was out of pocket, and I could name a score who were not only penniless but baggageless, he was quite welcome, well cared for and in several instances clothed! Some, notwithstanding her “positive orders,” exposed themselves to night air, when mosquitoes were most in evidence, and came in with headache and yellow fever. They were cared for and nursed back to health. No one knew better than Mrs. Brewer how to manage such cases. I could call the roll of the guests who came—and went, some to Canada, some to Mexico: Gen. and Mrs. Toombs of Georgia, Gen. Magruder, Gen. Fry and his beautiful wife, who was a Micou of Alabama; Commodore Moffitt and Ex-Gov. Moore of Louisiana; Major Bloomfield and his wife—some of us still remember Bloomfield. He had for years a blank-book and stationery shop in New Orleans. I have one of his books now, a leather-bound ledger. He was in service on somebody’s staff. There were some not of the army, but on business bent, blockade running and so on.

My gracious! I can’t begin to tell of the crowd that promenaded the galleries and _azotea_ of Hotel Cubano toward the end of the war. They all talked and talked fight, the ex-army men declaring they would not return to their homes with sheathed swords. Alas! They did, though. Before their talks came to an end the Confederacy did. J. P. Benjamin arrived on a sailboat with Gen. Breckinridge. They were wise as owls and had nothing to say. I remember the news came of the assassination of President Lincoln while a large party of the braves were dining at our house—on the _cerro_ of Havana. Some of them were jubilant, but a quiet word from Gen. Breckinridge: “Gentlemen, the South has lost its best friend,” and a quieter word from Mr. Benjamin: “We will let the painful subject drop,” acted as a quietus for our boisterous guests....

But I must not wander from our hostess of Hotel Cubano. A strange mixture was she of parsimony and prodigality, vindictiveness and gratitude, a grand woman withal, capable of doing heroic things. She knew intimately and had entertained the family of Pierre Soulé, who tarried at the Cubano en route to Spain, when Soulé was minister. The Slidells also were her friends, Jeff Davis’ family and scores of other prominent people. She made the first donation of $500 to the Jefferson Davis Monument Association. With vigorous, watchful management she accumulated a large fortune in Havana, though she maintained a host of parasites, poor relatives from the States. She had four girls at one time belonging to her kindred who were too poor to educate them. But her business methods were too queer and unconventional for words. She had leased the large hotel long before the war in the United States, for what was, even in those dull days in Havana, considered a low sum, for the chance of making it pay was a trifle against her. She kept it American style—had batter cakes and mince pies—so that, though her prices were, as we say now, “the limit,” every refugee and newspaper correspondent who was sick of garlic and crude oil diet, felt he had to live at the American hotel. Havana was then the refuge of defaulters and others of lax business methods, there being no extradition treaty between the United States and Spain.

In Cuba when you rent a house, you pay by the month, and so long as you meet the payments, you cannot be dispossessed. (I do not know what the law may be now; I write of forty years ago.) Not long after Mrs. Brewer’s venture proved a success, the owner tried every possible way to make her throw up the lease. Anyone knowing Mrs. Brewer as I did, could well understand there was no coercing her. She maintained her rights, paying rent with utmost promptness, and when paper currency made its unwelcome advent and was legally declared of equal value with gold, the payments were made in paper. That currency depreciated steadily and so greatly, too, that Mrs. Brewer told me the rent of her basement to the German consulate for storage purposes, which rent she exacted in gold, was, when exchanged for paper currency, sufficient to pay the rent of her entire building. When I remonstrated with her as being unjust, she explained that all the years she had occupied the building the owner refused to make necessary repairs and alterations. She had been compelled to put in modern plumbing, repairs, painting—in fact, everything—at her own expense, and now she was simply reimbursing herself. When she amassed a fortune, tired of the life, she threw up the lease, returned to the United States and a few years ago died at an advanced age. Her previous history is like a “story told by night.”

She was the wife of a United States army officer, stationed at Charleston, who eloped with his wife’s seamstress. She did not know nor did she take steps to inform herself, where they fled. He had cashed his bank account and gone. In her shameful abandonment she took passage on the first vessel leaving port for foreign lands. She arrived, a young, deserted wife, in Havana, years before I knew her, homeless and friendless, and was removed from the schooner on which she made the voyage from Charleston ill of yellow fever. When she was ready to leave the hospital, it was found not only the small amount of money in her purse, but her jewelry as well, was barely sufficient to pay her expenses. When she recovered, she speedily found work in Havana, sewing in the house of a Spanish _marquesa_, who became deeply interested in the case of the forlorn woman, eventually assisting her in getting an independent start at keeping a boarding house for foreigners in the city who chafed at Cuban cooking.

A proposition had been made to Mrs. Brewer by two or three American refugees to keep house for them, they to furnish everything, but the generous _marquesa_ vetoed the plan and offered to finance a better scheme. So Mrs. Brewer rented and furnished a small house, and the men came to her as boarders, thereby placing herself in a more independent position. From that small beginning sprung the largest, best equipped and most expensive—for her charges were exorbitant—hostelry in the island. Meanwhile the kindly _marquesa_ went her way gaily in the fashionable wealthy society of Havana, Mrs. Brewer working and managing, toiling and accumulating in her own domain. They rarely met.

When my family went to Cuba it was to escape from war troubles at home. We sought for rest and peace, but it was not long before we felt we may have “jumped from the frying pan into the fire.” Rebellion soon became rife on the island. We, being neutrals, had occasional visits from both parties of the guerilla type. The captains-general sent at frequent intervals from the mother country ruled with severity.

One morning while I was visiting Mrs. Brewer, the _marquesa_ called, in a terrible state of mind. Her young son, an only child, had been arrested, imprisoned and sentenced to be executed as a rebel sympathizer. She declared to Mrs. Brewer that she and her friends were powerless to do anything in the case, and she implored Mrs. Brewer’s assistance. It was grand to see how the American woman responded. “Go to your home, possess your soul in peace, if you can. I will intercede with the Captain-general.” She did, too. As I remember, Mr. Henry Hall was the American consul. A messenger was sent with flying feet to summon him. By the time she had dressed herself in her finest finery and decked her person with all the jewels she could muster and had her carriage and liveried coachman ready, Mr. Hall had put on his official dress, both knowing how important it was to create an impression on the wily Spaniard. They looked as if they might be more than count and countess, marquis and _marquesa_ themselves.

Arriving at the palace, our consul obtained immediate access to the potentate. Mrs. Brewer was introduced with a flourish, and she at once proceeded to tell her story. She told of the extreme youth of the prisoner, too immature to be a volunteer on either side, too inexperienced to have any opinion, and so on, imploring him to spare the life of “an only son, and his mother a widow.” The stern old man only shook his head and repeated that his orders were absolute and unchangeable. Mrs. Brewer fell upon her knees before him, declaring she would not rise until he at least commuted the sentence to banishment to Spain. She told him her own story; how she, a friendless woman, had been succored and comforted and assisted by the boy’s mother years before. She had been grateful, but had never had the opportunity to prove the depth of her gratitude.

I was still at Hotel Cubano, waiting, oh, so anxiously, to know the result of the mission, when Mrs. Brewer returned radiant. She had gone from the palace with the sentence of banishment in her hand to the _marquesa’s_ home. The young boy sailed the following day to Spain. Mr. Hall told me afterwards he had never witnessed such a scene; had never heard such an impassioned appeal. “It would,” he said, “have moved an image of stone.”

XXXVII

“WE SHALL KNOW EACH OTHER THERE”

Did you ever hear the old Methodist hymn, “We Shall Know Each Other There”? It appeals to me rather strongly now, when I read a long list of the names of those already “there,” who attended a meeting in New Orleans over sixty years ago, in behalf of Gen. Zach Taylor’s nomination for the United States Presidency. Every name is familiar to me. Each one calls to mind the features of a friend, and every blessed one of them has long ago joined the immortals. I trust they “know each other there.”

Here’s the name of Glendy Burke, who promised me a gold thimble when I was a little girl making my first attempt at cross-stitch, if I would finish the footstool for him. I earned the gold thimble, large enough for my finger, long after I was grown and married.

Cuthbert Bullitt and Levi Peirce! It seemed to require the presence of both to make a mass meeting a complete success. They lived almost side by side on St. Charles Street at that time. It was only the other day dear Mrs. Peirce died. She was born in 1812. I loved to visit the Peirces, though the daughters, Cora and Caroline, were at least ten years my senior. They never married, so managed to “keep young,” though Caroline was an invalid. She laughingly told me she had rheumatism of the heart and inner coating of the ribs, whatever that may mean.

In 1849 her doctor ordered her to Pass Christian, so early that the hotel, which I have attempted to describe in a previous chapter, was not open for the season. I was invited to accompany the two sisters. At first we were the only guests in the hotel, but presently there arrived J. DeB. De Bow of “Review” fame, and another bachelor, lacking the giddy and frivolous elements, a Mr. De Saulles. Mr. Pierce had sent us forth in style, with a mature maid, as duenna, to look after the three frisky misses, also a pack of cards and a bag of picayunes, to play that elevating and refining game of poker. I never enjoyed an outing more than those two out-of-season weeks at the old hotel at Pass Christian.

The two bachelors did not bother us with attentions, but, strange to say, Mr. De Bow and I actually felt congenial, and after our return to the city he made me several calls, and as the forgetful old lady remarked, “Might have been calling till now,” but some busybody—I always had my suspicions who—sent me at New Year’s, with Mr. De Bow’s card, a gaudily bound volume of “Poems of Amelia,” the silliest of love trash. I still have the book; it’s of the kind you never can lose. I showed it to him—so innocently, too, and thanked him the best I could for the uncomplimentary present. My old beau never called again. He was sensitive to ridicule, and seemed to have taken it _au sérieux_....

However, all this is a sidetrack. Mr. De Bow was not at that meeting, but Col. Christy and J. A. Maybin were. They were not of the De Bow type, but their familiar names are on the list before me. Both the Christys and Maybins lived near the Strawbridges, way off Poydras Street.

Here’s the name of Maunsel White, too. Both he and Christy were colonels—I believe veterans of the battle of New Orleans—the anniversary of which, the 8th of January, is always celebrated on the spot, and nowhere else I ever heard of. I never heard of one of Gen. Jackson’s men that was just a plain soldier in the ranks. They all had titles, from Gen. McCausland, who lived near Laurel Hill, down. I was a friend of Col. White’s daughter, Clara, and recall a delightful visit I made to their plantation, “Deer Range.” It must have been in March, for the dear Irish gentleman had a holiday. All the bells were ringing the day in, when I rose the first morning, and the old gentleman, after singing for our benefit “St. Patrick’s Day in the Morning,” proclaimed a plantation holiday. It was all great fun.

S. J. Peters I knew after my marriage. He was a lifelong friend of my husband’s. As long as he lived, and we were on our plantation, he sent us every New Year’s a demijohn of fine Madeira, by that universal express of the day, the _Belle Creole_. I forget how Mr. Peters looked, or anything I ever heard him say, but one does not easily forget a yearly present of five gallons of choice old wine.

Now here’s the name of John Hagan. Isn’t he the one who used to walk with two canes or a crutch? When I was a little child, of the credulous type, one of our darkies—the one that knew everything—told me “Dat man (speaking of a beggar that hobbled by) walks dat-away, caze he ain’t got no toes; you cain’t walk lessen you got toes.” I visited the Hagans once on their plantation and knew one of the younger sons, James, quite well, but he was the kind of beau that did not dance, and the dancing girls of my day had little use for such. So it is, my mind runs riot over this list, for I knew each name and some incident in the life or doings of each, pops up before me, and sends my thoughts wandering afar.

T. G. Morgan and W. W. McMain must have presented themselves as representing Baton Rouge. Both hailed from there. Besides they may have had a personal interest in the meeting, as Gen. Taylor was temporarily a neighbor, being in command at the Baton Rouge barracks. I wonder if those same barracks was not the only United States military station in Louisiana?

In the beginning of the war we Baton Rouge folks seemed to talk as though it was the only one in the South—talked of holding it against all odds—of never furling that home-made Confederate flag that floated over it. We delighted in those first days in just such bombastic talk. When I say “we” I mean those who remained at home, and fired remarks back and forth anent our invincibility. Very harmless shot, but it served to swell our breasts and make us believe we could conquer the whole Yankee land. However, when a few Yankees were good and ready to march in and demand that United States barracks, nobody said them nay.

My dear father, no doubt, would have helped swell the crowd, but mercifully he had fought his life’s battle and had joined a greater crowd where all is peace and rest. Col. John Winthrop was a nomad (doesn’t that word stand for a modern globe-trotter?), a lawyer who practiced his profession part of the time, but shut up his office, picked up his amiable wife and skipped off at frequent intervals to the enjoyment of travel and foreign life. They lived when at home in a house on Royal Street, a house with two rooms on each of two stories, which was enough and to spare for two people in those days. The Winthrops entertained a good deal too, in a quiet, sociable way, musicales, card parties and suppers. The last time I saw them was during one of their trips. They were leisurely resting in a quaint hotel in Havana. Now they are in the House of Many Mansions, for the dear Winthrops years ago took the long, final voyage....

But I find I have wandered, like any garrulous old lady, into all the bypaths leading from the great committee meeting. After the nomination of the soldier for the Presidency, an office he neither sought nor desired, and for which he was not fitted, he made a farewell visit to Baton Rouge and his old quarters at the United States barracks, to superintend the removal of his family and personal belongings. Of course, the little city that so loved the brave man was alive with enthusiasm, and rose to the extraordinary emergency of receiving a future President, to the tune of a fine satin-lined coach, a kind of chariot affair, and four horses! Such a sight was never seen there before, for there were no circus parades in those days, and if there had been they would not have honored small communities only accessible by river and boat. The modest, reluctant, great man was transported in this gorgeous affair back and forth, with the pomp and ceremony so unwelcome to him.

I did not happen to witness that first turnout, but I saw the same coach and four years after, a faded thing; it had been in the old stable at the barracks for years, where moth did corrupt, if the thieves did not steal. It was a sight that set all the little negroes flying to the gate to see this coach go lumbering down our river road, William S. Pike, the big man, the rich man, the banker with a capital B, on the box. Mr. Pike was Kentucky bred and could handle the reins of a four-in-hand as well as any stage driver in the Blue Grass region. He was collecting blankets for our soldiers, and made a hurried call (the road being long and business pressing) on us, just long enough to take every blanket we had, and the “winter of our discontent” at hand, too; proceeded with grand flourish and crack of whip to Col. Hicky’s, Fred Conrad’s, Gilbert Daigre’s, on down, down to William Walker’s at Manchac, taking blankets everywhere. At nightfall the loaded coach was driven again through our gate, and the tired coachman told of great success while refreshing himself with something hot and strengthening. The _Daily Comet_ had published repeated appeals for blankets, which met with meager results, but Mr. Pike in his one trip in the old Gen. Taylor moth-eaten, rusty, rattling coach swept up every blanket that could be spared, and no doubt a good many that couldn’t. The next call for blankets for our half-frozen men, busy in the mountains of Virginia, found us so desperate and demoralized that we gladly parted with our carpets.

The next time—and I suppose the last—that the coach and four were called into service was when Gen. Breckinridge made the attempt to defeat the Federals in Baton Rouge. Mr. Pike got secret information of the impending assault. The Gen. Taylor chariot—four mules this time, but Mr. Pike at the helm—well packed, tight as blankets, with the Pike family, was driven furiously out of town.

XXXVIII

A RAMBLE THROUGH NEW ORLEANS WITH BRUSH AND EASEL

Several years ago I visited New Orleans with my artist daughter. She had heard in her New York home so many wonderful and surprising stories of her mother’s child-life in the Crescent City that she was possessed with the idea such a fairyland must be a fine sketching field. We, therefore, gladly accepted the hospitality of a dear Creole friend, who let us go and come at all hours, in deference to (I was going to say our, but—) my little girl’s own free will. It was indeed a foreign land to her when she opened her eyes to the Creole life, the Creole home, the Creole street. Every old gateway and every tumbledown iron railing was an inspiration to her artistic mind. We spent happy days with brush and easel, wandering about the old French quarter, and the picturesquely dirty back streets.

The very first day in the city happened to be a Sunday. She was up and ready betimes to go to the French Market, where I used to go once in a great while and take coffee at Manette’s stall. It was a shock to her to see the ramshackle old market she had heard so much about, and whose praises had been sung to her by her Southern mother. No Manette. No stall where she could have been induced to take a cup of coffee; but a few steps off and a perspective view revealed to her cultivated eye the very sketch she wanted, the very thing she “came all the way to New Orleans for”—and a plan was formulated to go another day when the light would be more favorable.

In our rambles down Royal Street we passed an open corridor, with a view beyond of a blooming bit of _parterre_. She paused to look in. I saw only the bright flowers and the vases covered with vines. She saw only an iron fretwork lamp suspended from the ceiling. Oh! that was too artistic for anything! Did I think the people in that house would permit her to sketch, from the entrance, that long corridor and that wonderful lantern?

At that moment a pretty young girl passed through the shrubbery in the rear. I beckoned her. “Oh, yes, she knew mamma would be so happy.” The work was arranged for the following day, when the light would be just right. While my little lady worked I wandered around the corridor. The stairs leading to the living rooms above seemed strangely familiar. It dawned upon me that I had walked years before up those very stairs. The little Creole girl crossed the _parterre_ again, and was called to see the finished sketch. It was only a section of the corridor and the wonderful iron lamp. I ventured to inquire if the Bienvenues had not occupied that house in the fifties.

“Yes, indeed, my mamma was a Bienvenue.” The child flew upstairs to tell her mamma, and quickly returned with an invitation for us. Mamma desired to see the sketch, and to meet the lady who had visited her elder sisters. My daughter, used to the cold formality of the New York life, was overwhelmed with the Creole cordiality, delighted to hear that the lamp which had attracted her was a real Spanish antique, and had been hanging in the corridor almost a hundred years; delighted to be shown the superb chandeliers in the parlors, almost as old; and to have a cordial invitation to come another day and make a sketch of the little _parterres_ and of the rambling balconies in the rear.

We did mean to go again, but so many striking exteriors and interiors caught the eager eye of the maiden with the easel that we did not have time. The very next day that roving eye stole a peep into another enchanting corridor. Behold a wrecked fountain, long out of commission, with a dilapidated angel or sylph, or armless figure of some kind, clinging to it. There was another artistic temptation, but when she saw a pretty black-eyed girl washing clothes and playing at the same time with a saucy parrot it was simply irresistible. The girl was delighted to pose beside the fountain with Jacko on her finger. Her voluble mamma, _en blouse volante_, stood on the upper gallery and watched the work and commented, real Creole fashion. It was not a satisfactory bit of painting, but the girl was enraptured to accept it and could not have expressed greater appreciation if it had been a life-size portrait in a gilt frame.

Mamma would be hospitable, would have us see the faded old house, which had been a grand mansion in its day. We saw evidences of that in the very large rooms, the tarnished gilding, and the ample passages and old boudoirs. I think the _blouse volante_ woman must have had _chambres garnies_, but we saw no evidence of that. She had the daughter play on the one bit of furniture that amounted to anything, the fine piano, which she did quite charmingly. From the rear gallery we could see the top of the Opera House, and she told us they were _abonnées_, “so her daughter could hear the best music.” This was a glimpse of the old Creole life that I was glad my daughter should have.

Wandering down, what to her was “fascinating” St. Anne Street, behold a narrow alleyway, revealing in the rear sunlight a cistern, only a cistern, but that atmospheric effect was alluring. Up went the easel, out came the color box. The street was absolutely deserted, and we felt quite secure of an uninterrupted half hour; but a swarm of gamins came, apparently from the bowels of the earth, and surrounded us. At a critical moment a woman appeared, also from nowhere, and began to sweep diligently the little half-dark alley. She was transferred to the sketch before she knew what was “going on.” “_Mais gar! c’est Pauline, oui, c’est Pauline même_,” the little imps declared, as they peered over the artist’s shoulder and saw the figure. That final touch broke all attempts at decorum, and we begged a passing man with a walking cane to put the mob to flight.